Highlights from the week’s juvenile justice and justice related articles, videos and more that are worth your time.

In the U.S., Punishment Comes Before the Crimes

A very insightful article detailing how our criminal justice system exploded to the incomprehensible size that it is today. Porter puts facts that you would often find in different books side-by-side, powerfully demonstrating how our policies have created the illusion of heightened criminality. We will definitely be committing the numbers he cites to memory.

It is only through listening to our opponents that we can understand the kind of struggle we have undertaken…and this article does an excellent job of illustrating the challenges we face. After ‘roving teenage gangs terrorized people’ in Louisville, Kentucky, the state’s new policies—attempting to keep youth out of detention facilities—came under heavy scrutiny. What seems to be ignored, however, is the is the middle ground between incarceration and letting the streets run amok: treatment and rehabilitation.

Besides our moral imperative to enact policy change in the juvenile justice system, a legal one exists that is often not addressed when we demand our legislators to stand up and act. Liz Ryan, former director of Campaign for Youth Justice, outlines 3 reasons why the new federal juvenile justice regulations NEED to come to fruition.